The Great Barrier Reef (Australia) hit by ‘worst’ bleaching

The Great Barrier Reef of Australia is the world’s largest living structure and can be seen from space. There is mounting evidence that the reef is undergoing its worst coral bleaching experience so far. The National Coral Bleaching Taskforce NCBT) says 95% of reefs from Cairns to Papua New Guinea are now severely bleached; only four reefs out of 520 show no evidence of bleaching. Coral taskforce convener Professor Terry Hughes told that his team was yet to find the southern border where the bleaching ended. NCBT intends to continue further south from Cairns to Townsville about a 400km stretch of coast and check the bleaching level in another 150 reefs.

The worrying development has renewed calls for the UN to list it as ‘in-danger’. It was only in 2015 that UNESCO had voted not to put the reef on its World Heritage in Danger list. Now environmentalist green groups have upped their demand and want the decision to be reassessed. Man-made climate change continues to play havoc with ecology. Climate change exacerbated by rising water temperatures from two natural warm currents and the effects of El Nino are also blamed as contributing factors. With oceans absorbing about 93% of the increase in the earth’s heat, corals come under direct crossfire and mass coral bleaching is the result. Bleaching happens when corals, under stress due to rising temperatures and a host for other factors, drive out zooxanthellae -the algae which imparts them colour.

If normal conditions prevail, the corals recover taking, may be, decades but can also die if the stress continues. The worldwide bleaching episode the mankind is facing today is predicted to be the worst on record and has unequivocally to do with climate change. While experts aver that it is too early to predict whether the corals will recover, but scientists ‘in the water’ are already reporting up to 50% mortality of bleached corals.

At the Paris climate change meeting in 2015, the whole world agreed that the phenomenon was the result of climate change. Mankind in general and Australia in particular are seeing climate change play out across the reefs. It’s sad that the Great Barrier Reef we grew up reading about is on the wane. The revelation that the efforts to save the Reef are ‘too slow’ aggravates our worry further.